Anne
by adriana2
Summary: Anya does it again! And Buffy aka Anne ends up in an alternate universe. But there's always a catch, and she and the alternate Scoobies hurriedly try to find it before time runs out.


ANNE  
  
Author's Note: It's after the seventh season w/ some eight season filtered in, blah blah. But some things might not be like they are, for example: Willow and Oz. I KNOW Willow is a lesbian, but I just love her and Oz together, so.. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------  
  
Chapter 1: WHAT?  
  
Anne sighed as she slipped onto a bench in the middle of Central Park. A ball surprised her by bouncing onto the seat beside her; a little girl bounded over towards it and smiled when Anne bounced it to her. The little girl took this as a friendship motion and hoisted herself up onto the green bench.  
  
"What's your name?" she asked happily, cuddling with the ball in her lap. Anne groaned, she wanted to be alone today and everyday. Why did little girls have to be so gosh darn happy all the time?  
  
"Anne," she responded, not returning the ear-to-ear smile of the child.  
  
"I like that name. My name's Faith."  
  
"Faith." Anne whispered, remembering something. She was on the verge of blackness, nearing light, but it blacked out again too soon.  
  
"Yes, ma'am," the little girl responded happily. Anne glanced up when she heard the familiar crunch of shoes on grass. "Mommy!" Faith exclaimed and jumped off the bench; she grabbed Anne's hand and pulled her off the green bench. "Mommy! This is Anne!"  
  
The mom laughed and extended her hand to Anne. "Hello, Anne. My name's Julia. Sorry about little Faith, she loves making new friends." Anne's lips twitched into as close to a smile and she had come in the past few weeks since she had found herself sleeping in a dark, damp alley.  
  
"That's okay," Anne whispered. Awkwardly she said good-bye and walked out of the park, wishing with all her heart that she had somewhere to go, and someone's arms to fall into and cry her sorrows out about how much she wanted a solid identity.  
  
Without thinking she kicked a bum out of the way when he tried to grope her from behind. She was headed for the alley she had woken up in three weeks. Everyday Anne had visited the alley, hoping for some memory from the foggy past, and everyday she drew a black blank. It was the same today as any other day. Sadly Anne turned and headed towards her apartment which she hated. It was nothing near comforting or a kind retreat, it was ugly and cockroach infected.  
  
"Excuse me, Anne?" Anne was pulled around by a firm hand on her soldier. She gasped when she saw Faith's mother.  
  
"What do you want?" Anne snapped and turned back around.  
  
"To talk to you, are you okay?" Anne sighed, why did mothers have to be able to see inside your heart?  
  
"Sure," Anne responded, shaking her head at the same time. "Not all flowers and pinkish stuff, but sure, I'm fine."  
  
"Do you need a place to stay? Our nanny is leaving next week, and we need a new one." Anne sighed; she didn't want flowers and pinkish stuff to rule her life.  
  
"I have a place to stay, thank you. I'm not the nanny-type, anyways," Anne turned and started to walk away.  
  
"Wait!" Anne stopped. "What if you just stayed with us, and helped around the house?"  
  
"No, lady. I don't want to become a house-maid. My place is fine. I don't even know you, why do you want to help me?"  
  
The mom stuttered, not knowing how to respond. "Well.y-you looked so lonely. I-I just wanted to make you fell better."  
  
"The perfect Susie-homemaker, aren't you? I don't need your help, thank you very much." Anne turned around and stormed off, without realizing she was heading in the wrong direction. The mom started to protest, but decided better of it.  
  
Anne stomped ahead, turning around once to make sure that the prying mother wasn't following her. 'Who does she think I am?' Anne fumed. 'A child? Well, I've got news for you, Susie, I'm not. I am fully capable of taking care of myself, thank you!' In her hasted Anne didn't notice the change in landscape, from green and grassy to dark and dull.  
  
"Sorry," she muttered when she ran into someone. They glanced back to glare and her, and Anne got quite a shock when she saw the mangled, bloody face. Without realizing what she was doing she ducked a hand just as mangled as the face with yellow, molding nail long enough to stab. 'I'm dreaming,' she told herself with no avail, she was freaked out. Her eyes darted around her, and her steps quickened. 'Where am I?' she asked frantically to herself as she blocked blows from the mangled man. Without missing a beat she turned around, looking for a street sign. The man took this chance to pounce on her back, and for a few terrifying moments she was staring up into the blood-shot eyes.  
  
"Get off her!" a woman roared and threw the man onto the pavement beside her. "Are you okay?" she asked Anne and she hoisted her up. "Sorry about that, he gets a bit crabby." She smiled apologetically and quickly switched her gaze towards the huddled man on the street. "Herman!" she scolded. "You know better than to jump on helpless people's backs!" Anne groaned and ran away, this time in what she thought to be the right direction. 'Why am I all the sudden helpless?' she yelled within her head as she barreled down the alley towards her dorm. "No time," she muttered to Ms. Rupley, the old lady who loved chatting about good color combinations for quilts. 1.2.321.322.323.324, panting she slipped the key into the lock and plopped onto her less-that-clean comforter. Tears welled up in her eyes, ones she couldn't control. Her hand fumbled down beneath her bed and pulled out a rumpled waiters outfit with the nametag of Anne. She ripped the nametag off and flew it across the room in desperation.  
  
"Who am I?" she shrieked and broke down into heart-wrenching sobs. "I wish I knew who I was!"  
  
"Done," a woman's voice said from the doorway, it was the woman who had saved her before.  
  
"Can you do that?" Anne asked, shocked. She didn't see the demon face the replaced the woman's face until too late, it was blackness.  
  
"What's happening?" Anne groaned; her head ached more than could ever be imagined. "Where am I?" she asked as she sat up and the room around her focused.  
  
"Buffy!" a girl exclaimed and Anne felt her hand being picked up. She swatted the girl away and struggled to sit up.  
  
"Buffy, lay down," a man said, walking over and standing next to Anne.  
  
"My name's Anne," she said angrily, rubbing her head.  
  
"No, that's your middle name," the man corrected and took off his glasses to rub them on his sweater.  
  
"How do you know?" Anne asked, glaring.  
  
"How do I know?" the man exclaimed, shocked. "Good lord, you did take a good hit on the head."  
  
"Do you know my name?" the girl asked, rushing to the man's side. Her brilliant red hair flashed in the sun shining in through the miniscule library window. Anne did a double-take, library? Since when did she fall asleep in the library? The last thing she remembered was the woman..  
  
"Hello? Earth to Buffy!" the girl shook Anne out of her meditations. "Do you know my name?"  
  
"No, I don't. Now get off my back, I don't need to be fondled."  
  
"Whoa, hold on there," another boy interrupted. "Fondled? The last thing you need is to be hit again, not fondled. If that makes any sense," he backed away as Anne glared at him.  
  
"My name's Willow," the girl cut in. "This is Giles, Xander, and Oz," she pointed to each one as she said there names, plus a boy she hadn't noticed before.  
  
"And my name is." Anne began, although she had a feeling that she didn't want to hear this.  
  
"Buffy Anne Summers, daughter of the late Joyce Summers and kind-of- sisters with Dawn." Giles cut in, placing his glasses back on his nose.  
  
"Okay..kind-of-sisters? How is that possible?"  
  
"Well," Willow glanced nervously at Giles, not sure how to go on. "Well, she's the Key."  
  
"The Key? That makes no sense, someone that can open doors? What? I'm confused and my head hurts like a huge ton is on it."  
  
"She can be used as an instrument to open the hellmouth."  
  
"You guys are going all crazy on me. Hellmouth? Key? I am not understanding any of this, and why do I think my name is Anne?" Giles sighed reached his hands into his pockets.  
  
"I see that we have a lot of explaining to do," he said reluctantly.  
  
"Yeah," Anne confirmed and leaned back down onto the rather uncomfortable table-top to listen the fairy-tale story the four told her for the next hour.  
  
When they got to the part about her being the Slayer she cut in, "Wait, a slayer?"  
  
"You haven't noticed your special skills?" Giles asked calmly, holding the side of his glasses in his teeth. Anne, or Buffy, whipped it away from him and sat the glasses on the table.  
  
"You always play with your glasses, it bugs me."  
  
"Alright," he responded, surprised. "I'll stop, on the terms that you listen."  
  
"Fine," Anne grumbled and settled back down. She listened to Giles talk of demons and how she wasn't the only slayer, another one had been called when she died for the first time. Anne was confused and didn't know how to react to the sudden life she had been given. When he was finally done she sat up to talk to her 'new' friends who knew so much about her.  
  
"I have my own story to tell you, it's not interesting, not by far. But I need an explanation, even more than this KNOWLEDGE about my being the slayer and all. I mean, I have no clue why I'm here."  
  
"You were hit." Xander volunteered, but she cut him off.  
  
"That's what you guys obviously think, but if that's true, then that's not me. I was somewhere else before now."  
  
"Hmmm...Something like this has happened before," Giles began.  
  
"Before you start rifling through your old, dusty books," Anne picked up a book and plopped it back down onto the table for effect. "I woke up on morning in a dank alley, I had no clue where I was or who I was. I stumbled into a dorm in that alley that took me in, free of charge thank goodness. What I was wearing, I'm not sure why, was a waitress outfit with a nametag.Anne. So I assumed that was my name and took it on. My days were lonely pits, I would often go into Central Park and wander around, watching the happy families with identities." she went on. When Anne got to the part about the woman saying, 'done' Anne noticed Xander visibly stiffen and Giles stand up quickly. "What is it?"  
  
"Did her face change?" Giles asked hurriedly, rushing over to one of the many bookshelves.  
  
"I can't remember, I blacked out," Anne replied, wondering what Giles was rushing about for.  
  
"What did she look like?" Willow asked, clutching Anne's hand (which Anne quickly shook off).  
  
"Well." Anne thought for awhile, the rest of the room paused to listen for her reply. "Brownish hair, maybe shoulder length, and OH!" she smiled, remembering something. "She had rather beady eyes and looked really friendly." The room groaned, "What?"  
  
"My old girlfriend," Xander began. "Anya."  
  
"Is a former demon," Giles cut in. "Or, at least in this dimension."  
  
"In this dimension, I thought." Anne trailed off, feeling kind of stupid, she had thought none of this demon and vampire stuff was real either, today was not her day.  
  
"The way Anya works, and any other demon like her, is that she grants whatever wish is directed to her. You wished that 'none of this had never happened'"  
  
"But I didn't direct it to her."  
  
"But she saved your life earlier, so you owed her a debt of gratitude. That means that she can bend and twist the rules to fix what wishes she wants to grant for that particular person." Giles began to take his glasses off to clean them, but thought better of it.  
  
"But, Giles," Willow asked, standing up, "Isn't there always a catch to these wishes?"  
  
"Yes, there is. That's what I'm worried about." The room became silent, almost too silent. 


End file.
